Interesting argument, but it makes a big assumption: that vegans want bigger houses and more brand new stuff, such as clothes. While we all need food and shelter and basic necessities, some of us, vegan or not, actually prefer small houses and second-hand stuff, including clothes. Perhaps the bigger problem is overconsumption.
The assumption in aggregate holds very well even when there are individuals who are exceptions. Overconsumption definitely is one way of thinking about it, but I think it’s easier to change how we produce things than to shift human preferences. And the vegan example is more to illustrate the principle than to pick on a tiny subset of humanity with niche preferences, notwithstanding the stereotype I used.
I had the same thought, Melanie. I think the comment oversimplifies some of the thinking behind the drive to reduce meat consumption. Often veganism is paired with postcolonial Tiktok hogwash in a similar way to other fad diets; or touted as a root-of-all-evil solution to all of our environmental woes (and maybe the scope of this comment sits entirely with the latter, though this could be made more clear). However, just as often I see it associated with arguments whose central premise is anti-capitalist resistance—as you said, not just reducing meat, but reducing the market-driven imperative for consumption overall. I think the assumption implicit in this article that it is efficiency rather than reduction of consumption that is totally driving the vegan movement fails to capture a meaningful part of the picture.
Not a strict vegan myself and not 'coming for you', Neal! Appreciate the nuance this comment adds to the conversation around ag-driven deforestation.
@Dane Bell, the anti-capitalist argument suffers from the same problem: whether you're a communist, capitalist, or anything between you want to eat good food. On that point, i don't think there's any way to reduce demand for aggregate consumption without pretty horrific and violent steps being taken. Price is a much less violent approach, but if you increase aggregate prices of food you get hungrier people, black markets, and arbitrage. It's a devilish problem, to be sure.
One of my axioms is that working with nature includes human nature, and humans like to consume, whatever our politics are.
Overconsumption is a symptom of a spiritual sickness that plagues those who are cultural orphans lost in the delusions of statism and no longer are aware of their own indigenous roots (we all have them).
For more on that watch "Wendigo Thinking, The Path Of The Sacred Warrior and the Reclamation Of Our Indigeneity" :
Also, I would argue that Statism is the prime mover that perpetuates overconsumption. As Derrick highlights in this clip https://youtu.be/ImbnWSkqfig?si=iKBt_pZDiBsQyqWr "GNP" is really the measure of how fast a statist regime can turn living things into dead uniform commodities. Statist regimes inculcate their citizens with propaganda systems to make them into obedient consumers and extract taxes from them (using the threat of violence) which those statist regimes them give to corporations that pillage the Earth (Big Ag, vegan or non vegan, Clearcutting forestry operations, Big pharma and the military industrial complex).
The proponents of techno-optimism, transhumanism and “Bright Green environmentalism” would tell you that we can have our cake and eat it too, but they seem not to care whether or not we end up living in a planet that is a giant open pit mine and factory farm.
Human habitation of an area can actually increase biodiversity, water quality and beauty rather than diminish it.
It is more a matter of the ethos and self-image driving cultures that determines whether or not they serve as a blessing or an imposition on an ecosystem.
Cultures that perceive themselves as having a responsibility as stewards and caretakers, while seeing nature as being comprised of myriad beings all possessing a sprit (like humans do) and offering gifts tend to be driven by motivating factors like gratitude, reciprocity and making use of every part of another being they kill/harvest while only taking what they need to live healthily. Some of those cultures can live in an ecosystem while simultaneously enriching it.
Cultures that perceive themselves as the most important organism on the planet, being entitled to exploit as they see fit and having no responsibility/need to reciprocate, seeing nature as a collection of dead/intimate resources and stupid animals (worth less than humans) take and take for greed without restraint and kill for pleasure and profit. Those cultures typically decrease biodiversity, poison the water and desertify once lush ecosystems in their endless quest for more disposable superficial pleasures, comfort, opulence and attempting to fill a void in their heart (where gratitude should be) with more material things.
The first type of culture does not require living in teepees or mud huts, but it does require humility, being willing to constantly learn new things/skills, pattern observation, biomimicry, courage and determination.
The second cultural trajectory only requires that we keep on having faith in and voting for politicians (that are part of intrinsically degenerative statist regimes), buying stuff from Amazon, Walmart, keep on making excuses why we cannot grow our own food, buying big ag/factory farm food and move into the wonderful utopian smart cities being constructed for us.
Thus, I propose it is the trends that arise from the statist religion (see link below for more info: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/why-i-do-not-celebrate-canada-day ) which are the most significant factor in deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, water poisoning and many other degenerative trends. Vegans and Beef eaters can live regeneratively or they can be devout statists and follow blindly as multi-generational racketeering operations continue to pillage the Earth.
Governments (every last involuntary form of government that uses violent coercion) is the single most ecologically destructive force on the planet.
Rather than go back to an old way, I am engaging in what is called active ethnogenesis (more on my specific meaning of that term in how I use it that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJN-wUR6vU )
Hi Gavin, yes I read that in your article and I was concurring with you about not going back. I’ll have a read and watch of these, thank you for the links. 🙏
We have been convinced that our lumber is grown in natural forests, the reality is our lumber is grown in mono crop plantations with no biodiversity with more ecological downsides (water pollution, flooding, depleting soil) that needs to be included in the total ecological picture. The amount of land used for growing wood products in California is 16.1 million acres - the next largest category of ag production is "all grains" at only 6.2 million acres. We are told by the lumber industry that lumber is renewable, this only true within a very narrow definition of “renewable”
Neil, I do like how you pointed some absurdities of the common narration (“if everyone just…”) , but I disagree with your overall logic at several points. First, the extent of Jevons paradox (that says that lowering price of something causes increase of demand) in the particular case of food production is debatable. If some people choose to eat seven vegetarian lunches per week rather than chicken, it’s still seven lunches and it won’t become twenty. In other words, there is natural limit to the amount of pasta they will consume.
Second: contrarily to your thesis, history shows that when farming is inefficient, many farmers do abandon land or transform it into forest thus increasing forestation. In Poland in last 30 years, after economic transformation , percentage of farming population dropped from 25% to 8%, while forestation grew from 27% to 31%.
Third: The constant growth of consumerism which you quote is also debatable. In Europe, the trend to consume less is something very strong and common. And finally, eating less meat is not just about forestation, but more so about preventing desertification and using nature in more rational way. In Cape Verde and Sahel (West Africa) where I travel a lot, desertification it is mainly caused by abusive grazing, where cows and goats will eat every tiny bit of grass and what remains is just wasteland. In Senegal, every family needs to kill a sheep once per year for Tabaski muslim feat. So there are millions of goats. And there is no grass. You need to see the scale of this - it is an ecological disaster spanning thousands and thousands of miles. Most of Arab countries - same. Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, India - same. The percentage of planet area that turned into desert due to cattle is enormous, and growing. The battle is not even about planting forests, it is really about the survival of humans.
I've been to Senegal (via Gambia) and am advising a couple projects in the region, and very aware of the results of mismanaged grazing. Beyond that, I spent 8 years with bedouin camel herders in the Saudi Desert before I pivoted to blue ecosystems, where I prototyped how to reverse desertification and increase the carrying capacity of some of the most degraded land on the planet. So i'm not just writing from theory.
My retort to the Europe comment is that for every European trying to consume less there are three or four Chinese and Indian people trying to consume a lot more, and a whole bunch of Nigerians coming up as well.
My retort to "but inefficient land" is that i'm not saying efficiency is bad--i'm saying it's not a solution by itself. When higher efficiency comes with negative externalities, the per-unit impact may be smaller but the aggregate impact is greater.
Neal, thank you. All this is intriguing. Your experience sounds amazing. But I can’t notice that your article reads as “stop this vegetarian madness, it will not save the world”. Maybe this is not what you wanted to say, but this is how it sounds. If this is coming from a person who lived eight years on a desert, and even has advisory role on agriculture, such standpoint is very surprising. This desert would be much smaller if not for overgrazing. But also in Europe: much mediterranean landscape we know today is not natural. There are ancient Roman accounts of Iberian peninsula (Spain) covered by forest so dense that “squirrel could walk across the country without stepping on earth”. That disappeared and now most of Spain is arid desert, again mainly due to centuries of of presence of cattle. What most people don’t realize is that Carpathian mountains are also example of degradation - those beautiful mountain ridges are void from forest not naturally, but mainly due to sheep who for centuries were pastured by Valasi (the mountain tribe). There are plenty of examples around us of how bad domestic animals are and have been for the nature. Not to mention biodiversity: allegedly over 96% of land mammal biomass is humans and domestic animals, there are almost no wild mammals left, on any continent.
Dear Pablo thanks for your comment—I have no problem with people being vegetarian and have a lot of respect for people who make that choice for ethical reasons. 100% it will not solve the problem.
For the rest of the comment, please go back to my posts on sharing v sparing and the miracle and horror of modern ag.
You are correct that poor animal management has been a major cause of degradation. However I have also seen where well managed animal systems drastically improved ecological function, whether you are talking small water cycle, soil creation, and biodiversity. I do not believe animals themselves are the problem, rather the systems we use to manage them.
Also, watch this, which is where I cut my teeth on regenerative development with the bedou:
At this point I am doing best to become vegan primarily because I hate the way most animals are treated. That's personal.
In terms of figuring out how to feed 300+ million people, we have a long way to go.
When I look at the energy expense of transport, I come to believe that we must make food production as local as possible. Small or smallish groups, rural or urban, using regenerative methods without chemicals.
When we look at where we are my ideas seem ridiculous. IMO we have been doing EVERYTHING wrong for over 50 years. So, I don't know if we're going to make it or not, but this is where we need to go. Localize everything as much as possible. Accept a completely different way of life.
Thanks for the comment Margaret, I respect the ethos you have personally and am inclined to agree with you on the rest. I don’t think energy is the bottleneck as much as ecology is tho.
Sorry, clumsy of me: …hits the fan, purchased grain for the animals will be my weak link. I suspect that diesel will still be available after widespread economic breakdown, and so a three hour drive to buy inputs will be possible. My point, though, that completely local is impossible. We will starve, or we will be eating potatoes, beans and oat cakes.
"The greatest obstacle to combatting climate change is convenience." Donal Daly. I grow cocoa and vanilla using regen agriculture. Agroforestry is complex - both to do and to explain, Neal, you do a great job of it. Keep up the stories (and nobody is at the IRS to tell you your taxes are late anyway.....)
I have been thinking about the biotic pump, ecosystems and these particularly issues for years. I have been thinking about what it truly means to be sustainable for decades, and I love that you are delving into these murky topics where the political memes and common thinking fall apart under detailed nuance.
I wanted to ask you what you think of my idea of, treating forest, in particular contiguous tracts from coast inland, as strategically critical infrastructure. The nations of the world should value, regulate, maintain, and protect their forest like they do their critical, water, power and transportation infrastructure. Maybe more would get done for environmental restoration if governments saw forest for what they are, critical water infrastructure of national importance? In addition, more of this sort of infrastructure should be created with intelligent "terraforming" projects to enhance water and climate security?
I don't see environmentalist, non-profits or carbon credit schemes as viable for doing what needs to be done? Could this be a more viable route?
I totally agree. Efficiency-thinking is also the norm/mantra in livestock production and animal science and totallz misguided. Looking forward to zour further writings on the issue!
The most intact ecosystems on the Great Plains (as cover photo here) are the ones devoted to raising meat. The ones devoted to vegetarian foodstuffs ala the photo are vast ecological wastelands burning oceans of oil at planting and harvesttime.
But at the end of the day, the #1 most relevant factor behind why none of this is working so well for life anymore is our horrifying scale today, our vast and lethal human numbers.
Actually the cover photo is from Brazil, and from the area I mentioned in the hypothetical. But yes, different food systems affect ecological function very differently, and pointing to a commodity without understanding how it is produced is superficial.
Poor Brazil! Yes, exactly, context is vital, and considerations of scale are baseline as well. If 500,000 million or a billion perhaps people existed globally, none of this would be much of a problem beyond some local examples.
A good article. The point that the farmer will always want to use the land to produce value is obvious, so the trick should be to make nature restoration/ protection a viable income stream - i.e. the concept of nature capital. If ecosystem services were valued appropriately -i.e. clean air, water, carbon sequestration, increases in biodiversity, etc. - then the sentence would read "we use it for fuel, fiber, construction, medicine, drugs, ships, AND NATURE." Job done.
Most of the farmers I know do what they can, and government climate-change programs are very helpful to finance things like flower seeds and trees to feed the birds.
But honestly, the paperwork is prohibitive, and the grants are taxable. The projects must be financed by the farmer, and if funding gets cut halfway through, well, there you are.
Great work Neal but I fear the nest of hornets you poke. Maybe there will come a time when we can all agree its not what we eat but the pressure from 8 billion human chemical engines in need of fuel… increasing at a rate of 8,000 an hour.
I put a stat in one of my books on pig meat production in China over my lifetime. More than an order of magnitude increase to over 50 million metric tons, mostly driven by demand.
This is why the first series i'm writing is about sharing vs sparing and the question of how we feed ourselves without destroying our home. In my opinion it's the most existential question we face.
I’ve cut my personal meat consumption considerably, for a variety of reasons, one being its effect on land under the current model. You are correct, unless and until people choose to make the choice on their own, it’s a fool’s errand to attempt to force such a change.
I avoid any meat from CAFOs except when I travel for work, and am building a regenerative seafood company that will facilitate blue ecosystem restoration. I think all meat should be regeneratively grown but supply is still very low
I’m fortunate, I’ve a number of ranchers and hunters in the family, so when I do want meat, I know where it came from. As I said however, I’m more fortunate than most.
I was intrigued by the headline but didn't find any of this very convincing. It comes across as something you just thought up. The assumption that land ownership works the same way in the Amazon as anywhere else is flawed. There is a lot of illegal seizure/burning/occupying of Amazon forest. Land that is suitable for ranching is not usually easily converted to soybeans, as far as I know, but I could be wrong. The story also ignores numerous instances of farmland being rewilded to serve a specific ecological purpose, like wetland restoration or flood reduction. I would have appreciated some references or links. I followed you as I'm still interested in what you have to say.
The bulk of the Cerrado is being converted to soybeans --
And the illegality of deforestation reinforces my point -- that people see an opportunity to exploit natural capital for financial capital, and it's a big enough draw that they're willing to break the law to do so.
As for farmland conversion -- yes it happens, usually because a farm has failed. I touched on that in a couple previous articles.
I think I get your wider - much more important - point - that so long as we consume so much and fail to acknowledge the destructive effect of commercial farming in general then the spiral will continue. However, I think we should emphasis the massive energy savings of reducing meat consumption. Neither the planet nor our biology was meant to eat meat ten times per week. Conscious consumption necessitates reduction in meat consumption
Hi Dr Dan thanks for the comment—you’ve got the greater point, and the second half of your comment is the subject of many future posts. If you go to my original post on humans as a keystone species it’ll give you a taste of where this is going.
Well said. Consumerism, capitalism, greed. Call it what you will, animal agriculture as it is practiced today is just one cog in the machine keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Reducing consumption of animal products is but one piece of the puzzle. The thing is, it would yield multi-factor benefits - less murder and torture of sentient, feeling beings, less horrific pollution, and better human health.
Deforestation is probably one of the lesser negative outcomes of animal agriculture. Still bad but as you rightly point out, re-wilding is wildly unrealistic. Would be wonderful but not really practical unless we’re planning on a pretty epic depopulation of humans.
The obvious missing information in the pro-vegan graphic: who feeds the microbes?
The cattle feed the microbes, and the dung beetles, and the worms.
If they are thinking the grain will grow without animals in the loop, either they are counting on synthetic fertilizers, or they simply don’t know what it takes to grow a crop.
You're right in that efficiency is not the ONLY solution. There can be a rebount effect. We had a sustainability class at uni talking about models of sustainability and how it used to be simply about efficiency but that's not enough to really be sustainable for future generations. Other factors like sufficiency and consistency matter too. Nonetheless efficiency is an important PART of a sustainable future and that definitely means people need to reduce meat consumption. The vegans still speak the facts if they talk about the land that's being used and specifically Amazon rain forest being cut down to feed cattle like that's just a reality.
Interesting argument, but it makes a big assumption: that vegans want bigger houses and more brand new stuff, such as clothes. While we all need food and shelter and basic necessities, some of us, vegan or not, actually prefer small houses and second-hand stuff, including clothes. Perhaps the bigger problem is overconsumption.
The assumption in aggregate holds very well even when there are individuals who are exceptions. Overconsumption definitely is one way of thinking about it, but I think it’s easier to change how we produce things than to shift human preferences. And the vegan example is more to illustrate the principle than to pick on a tiny subset of humanity with niche preferences, notwithstanding the stereotype I used.
I had the same thought, Melanie. I think the comment oversimplifies some of the thinking behind the drive to reduce meat consumption. Often veganism is paired with postcolonial Tiktok hogwash in a similar way to other fad diets; or touted as a root-of-all-evil solution to all of our environmental woes (and maybe the scope of this comment sits entirely with the latter, though this could be made more clear). However, just as often I see it associated with arguments whose central premise is anti-capitalist resistance—as you said, not just reducing meat, but reducing the market-driven imperative for consumption overall. I think the assumption implicit in this article that it is efficiency rather than reduction of consumption that is totally driving the vegan movement fails to capture a meaningful part of the picture.
Not a strict vegan myself and not 'coming for you', Neal! Appreciate the nuance this comment adds to the conversation around ag-driven deforestation.
@Dane Bell, the anti-capitalist argument suffers from the same problem: whether you're a communist, capitalist, or anything between you want to eat good food. On that point, i don't think there's any way to reduce demand for aggregate consumption without pretty horrific and violent steps being taken. Price is a much less violent approach, but if you increase aggregate prices of food you get hungrier people, black markets, and arbitrage. It's a devilish problem, to be sure.
One of my axioms is that working with nature includes human nature, and humans like to consume, whatever our politics are.
Overconsumption is a symptom of a spiritual sickness that plagues those who are cultural orphans lost in the delusions of statism and no longer are aware of their own indigenous roots (we all have them).
For more on that watch "Wendigo Thinking, The Path Of The Sacred Warrior and the Reclamation Of Our Indigeneity" :
https://youtu.be/oT1j3WVfBKQ?si=3cppKtPQaT7e0ryS
Also, I would argue that Statism is the prime mover that perpetuates overconsumption. As Derrick highlights in this clip https://youtu.be/ImbnWSkqfig?si=iKBt_pZDiBsQyqWr "GNP" is really the measure of how fast a statist regime can turn living things into dead uniform commodities. Statist regimes inculcate their citizens with propaganda systems to make them into obedient consumers and extract taxes from them (using the threat of violence) which those statist regimes them give to corporations that pillage the Earth (Big Ag, vegan or non vegan, Clearcutting forestry operations, Big pharma and the military industrial complex).
The proponents of techno-optimism, transhumanism and “Bright Green environmentalism” would tell you that we can have our cake and eat it too, but they seem not to care whether or not we end up living in a planet that is a giant open pit mine and factory farm.
I personally do not think an expanding human population necessitates the depletion of resources and means that forests nor other species will die off. (for more info: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/are-there-limits-to-growth )
Human habitation of an area can actually increase biodiversity, water quality and beauty rather than diminish it.
It is more a matter of the ethos and self-image driving cultures that determines whether or not they serve as a blessing or an imposition on an ecosystem.
Cultures that perceive themselves as having a responsibility as stewards and caretakers, while seeing nature as being comprised of myriad beings all possessing a sprit (like humans do) and offering gifts tend to be driven by motivating factors like gratitude, reciprocity and making use of every part of another being they kill/harvest while only taking what they need to live healthily. Some of those cultures can live in an ecosystem while simultaneously enriching it.
Cultures that perceive themselves as the most important organism on the planet, being entitled to exploit as they see fit and having no responsibility/need to reciprocate, seeing nature as a collection of dead/intimate resources and stupid animals (worth less than humans) take and take for greed without restraint and kill for pleasure and profit. Those cultures typically decrease biodiversity, poison the water and desertify once lush ecosystems in their endless quest for more disposable superficial pleasures, comfort, opulence and attempting to fill a void in their heart (where gratitude should be) with more material things.
The first type of culture does not require living in teepees or mud huts, but it does require humility, being willing to constantly learn new things/skills, pattern observation, biomimicry, courage and determination.
The second cultural trajectory only requires that we keep on having faith in and voting for politicians (that are part of intrinsically degenerative statist regimes), buying stuff from Amazon, Walmart, keep on making excuses why we cannot grow our own food, buying big ag/factory farm food and move into the wonderful utopian smart cities being constructed for us.
Thus, I propose it is the trends that arise from the statist religion (see link below for more info: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/why-i-do-not-celebrate-canada-day ) which are the most significant factor in deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, water poisoning and many other degenerative trends. Vegans and Beef eaters can live regeneratively or they can be devout statists and follow blindly as multi-generational racketeering operations continue to pillage the Earth.
Governments (every last involuntary form of government that uses violent coercion) is the single most ecologically destructive force on the planet.
For more on why that is the case, read: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/why-i-do-not-celebrate-canada-day
Gavin, thank you for this comment. I think there is a lot of valuable conversation around today about what is culture and what would make a better culture and would where we could live in harmony with ourselves and the Earth. Indigenous Peoples have lived this way for thousands of years, but we can't go back to that way. We need to build something but using the deep wisdom they have given us. I've written about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/vincentmcmahon/p/a-culture-that-holds-you-the-feeling?r=19i5c6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Hi Vincent,
Thanks for the comment.
I do not advocate going back to a way from the past.
For more clarification on what I am advocating and working to make manifest in my community, read:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/designing-bio-cultural-refugia
Rather than go back to an old way, I am engaging in what is called active ethnogenesis (more on my specific meaning of that term in how I use it that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJN-wUR6vU )
I`ll read your post when I have time.
Hi Gavin, yes I read that in your article and I was concurring with you about not going back. I’ll have a read and watch of these, thank you for the links. 🙏
We have been convinced that our lumber is grown in natural forests, the reality is our lumber is grown in mono crop plantations with no biodiversity with more ecological downsides (water pollution, flooding, depleting soil) that needs to be included in the total ecological picture. The amount of land used for growing wood products in California is 16.1 million acres - the next largest category of ag production is "all grains" at only 6.2 million acres. We are told by the lumber industry that lumber is renewable, this only true within a very narrow definition of “renewable”
Yep lumber is a huge ag product and demand is enormous
I absolutely agree with you. Thank you for bringing this to people’s attention!
Neil, I do like how you pointed some absurdities of the common narration (“if everyone just…”) , but I disagree with your overall logic at several points. First, the extent of Jevons paradox (that says that lowering price of something causes increase of demand) in the particular case of food production is debatable. If some people choose to eat seven vegetarian lunches per week rather than chicken, it’s still seven lunches and it won’t become twenty. In other words, there is natural limit to the amount of pasta they will consume.
Second: contrarily to your thesis, history shows that when farming is inefficient, many farmers do abandon land or transform it into forest thus increasing forestation. In Poland in last 30 years, after economic transformation , percentage of farming population dropped from 25% to 8%, while forestation grew from 27% to 31%.
Third: The constant growth of consumerism which you quote is also debatable. In Europe, the trend to consume less is something very strong and common. And finally, eating less meat is not just about forestation, but more so about preventing desertification and using nature in more rational way. In Cape Verde and Sahel (West Africa) where I travel a lot, desertification it is mainly caused by abusive grazing, where cows and goats will eat every tiny bit of grass and what remains is just wasteland. In Senegal, every family needs to kill a sheep once per year for Tabaski muslim feat. So there are millions of goats. And there is no grass. You need to see the scale of this - it is an ecological disaster spanning thousands and thousands of miles. Most of Arab countries - same. Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, India - same. The percentage of planet area that turned into desert due to cattle is enormous, and growing. The battle is not even about planting forests, it is really about the survival of humans.
Thanks for the comment, Pablo!
I go more into the efficiency trap here in my other post here, which addresses some of your comments:
https://open.substack.com/pub/nealspackman/p/the-miracle-and-terror-of-modern-cc1?r=6yyg3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I've been to Senegal (via Gambia) and am advising a couple projects in the region, and very aware of the results of mismanaged grazing. Beyond that, I spent 8 years with bedouin camel herders in the Saudi Desert before I pivoted to blue ecosystems, where I prototyped how to reverse desertification and increase the carrying capacity of some of the most degraded land on the planet. So i'm not just writing from theory.
My retort to the Europe comment is that for every European trying to consume less there are three or four Chinese and Indian people trying to consume a lot more, and a whole bunch of Nigerians coming up as well.
My retort to "but inefficient land" is that i'm not saying efficiency is bad--i'm saying it's not a solution by itself. When higher efficiency comes with negative externalities, the per-unit impact may be smaller but the aggregate impact is greater.
Neal, thank you. All this is intriguing. Your experience sounds amazing. But I can’t notice that your article reads as “stop this vegetarian madness, it will not save the world”. Maybe this is not what you wanted to say, but this is how it sounds. If this is coming from a person who lived eight years on a desert, and even has advisory role on agriculture, such standpoint is very surprising. This desert would be much smaller if not for overgrazing. But also in Europe: much mediterranean landscape we know today is not natural. There are ancient Roman accounts of Iberian peninsula (Spain) covered by forest so dense that “squirrel could walk across the country without stepping on earth”. That disappeared and now most of Spain is arid desert, again mainly due to centuries of of presence of cattle. What most people don’t realize is that Carpathian mountains are also example of degradation - those beautiful mountain ridges are void from forest not naturally, but mainly due to sheep who for centuries were pastured by Valasi (the mountain tribe). There are plenty of examples around us of how bad domestic animals are and have been for the nature. Not to mention biodiversity: allegedly over 96% of land mammal biomass is humans and domestic animals, there are almost no wild mammals left, on any continent.
Dear Pablo thanks for your comment—I have no problem with people being vegetarian and have a lot of respect for people who make that choice for ethical reasons. 100% it will not solve the problem.
For the rest of the comment, please go back to my posts on sharing v sparing and the miracle and horror of modern ag.
You are correct that poor animal management has been a major cause of degradation. However I have also seen where well managed animal systems drastically improved ecological function, whether you are talking small water cycle, soil creation, and biodiversity. I do not believe animals themselves are the problem, rather the systems we use to manage them.
Also, watch this, which is where I cut my teeth on regenerative development with the bedou:
https://youtu.be/T39QHprz-x8?si=n5WfwK9KuwjVA8vA
At this point I am doing best to become vegan primarily because I hate the way most animals are treated. That's personal.
In terms of figuring out how to feed 300+ million people, we have a long way to go.
When I look at the energy expense of transport, I come to believe that we must make food production as local as possible. Small or smallish groups, rural or urban, using regenerative methods without chemicals.
When we look at where we are my ideas seem ridiculous. IMO we have been doing EVERYTHING wrong for over 50 years. So, I don't know if we're going to make it or not, but this is where we need to go. Localize everything as much as possible. Accept a completely different way of life.
Thanks for the comment Margaret, I respect the ethos you have personally and am inclined to agree with you on the rest. I don’t think energy is the bottleneck as much as ecology is tho.
Sorry, clumsy of me: …hits the fan, purchased grain for the animals will be my weak link. I suspect that diesel will still be available after widespread economic breakdown, and so a three hour drive to buy inputs will be possible. My point, though, that completely local is impossible. We will starve, or we will be eating potatoes, beans and oat cakes.
"The greatest obstacle to combatting climate change is convenience." Donal Daly. I grow cocoa and vanilla using regen agriculture. Agroforestry is complex - both to do and to explain, Neal, you do a great job of it. Keep up the stories (and nobody is at the IRS to tell you your taxes are late anyway.....)
Thanks Ruth appreciate your comment!
Neal,
I have been thinking about the biotic pump, ecosystems and these particularly issues for years. I have been thinking about what it truly means to be sustainable for decades, and I love that you are delving into these murky topics where the political memes and common thinking fall apart under detailed nuance.
I wanted to ask you what you think of my idea of, treating forest, in particular contiguous tracts from coast inland, as strategically critical infrastructure. The nations of the world should value, regulate, maintain, and protect their forest like they do their critical, water, power and transportation infrastructure. Maybe more would get done for environmental restoration if governments saw forest for what they are, critical water infrastructure of national importance? In addition, more of this sort of infrastructure should be created with intelligent "terraforming" projects to enhance water and climate security?
I don't see environmentalist, non-profits or carbon credit schemes as viable for doing what needs to be done? Could this be a more viable route?
That’s an education problem first, and a public goods problem second
I totally agree. Efficiency-thinking is also the norm/mantra in livestock production and animal science and totallz misguided. Looking forward to zour further writings on the issue!
I think efficiency is important, but we have to take the full account of the outcomes!
There's also the problem that veganism is a eugenics movement, which I document here: https://substack.com/@calvinperrins115393/note/c-106192165?r=1sa22z
The most intact ecosystems on the Great Plains (as cover photo here) are the ones devoted to raising meat. The ones devoted to vegetarian foodstuffs ala the photo are vast ecological wastelands burning oceans of oil at planting and harvesttime.
But at the end of the day, the #1 most relevant factor behind why none of this is working so well for life anymore is our horrifying scale today, our vast and lethal human numbers.
Actually the cover photo is from Brazil, and from the area I mentioned in the hypothetical. But yes, different food systems affect ecological function very differently, and pointing to a commodity without understanding how it is produced is superficial.
Poor Brazil! Yes, exactly, context is vital, and considerations of scale are baseline as well. If 500,000 million or a billion perhaps people existed globally, none of this would be much of a problem beyond some local examples.
A good article. The point that the farmer will always want to use the land to produce value is obvious, so the trick should be to make nature restoration/ protection a viable income stream - i.e. the concept of nature capital. If ecosystem services were valued appropriately -i.e. clean air, water, carbon sequestration, increases in biodiversity, etc. - then the sentence would read "we use it for fuel, fiber, construction, medicine, drugs, ships, AND NATURE." Job done.
It should be obvious but often goes completely ignored with these arguments
Agreed!
Most of the farmers I know do what they can, and government climate-change programs are very helpful to finance things like flower seeds and trees to feed the birds.
But honestly, the paperwork is prohibitive, and the grants are taxable. The projects must be financed by the farmer, and if funding gets cut halfway through, well, there you are.
Great work Neal but I fear the nest of hornets you poke. Maybe there will come a time when we can all agree its not what we eat but the pressure from 8 billion human chemical engines in need of fuel… increasing at a rate of 8,000 an hour.
I put a stat in one of my books on pig meat production in China over my lifetime. More than an order of magnitude increase to over 50 million metric tons, mostly driven by demand.
Its what we do.
This is why the first series i'm writing is about sharing vs sparing and the question of how we feed ourselves without destroying our home. In my opinion it's the most existential question we face.
Absolutely. Happy to share my books on this with you.
https://www.mindfulsceptics.info/p/bookshelf
I’ve cut my personal meat consumption considerably, for a variety of reasons, one being its effect on land under the current model. You are correct, unless and until people choose to make the choice on their own, it’s a fool’s errand to attempt to force such a change.
I avoid any meat from CAFOs except when I travel for work, and am building a regenerative seafood company that will facilitate blue ecosystem restoration. I think all meat should be regeneratively grown but supply is still very low
I’m fortunate, I’ve a number of ranchers and hunters in the family, so when I do want meat, I know where it came from. As I said however, I’m more fortunate than most.
I was intrigued by the headline but didn't find any of this very convincing. It comes across as something you just thought up. The assumption that land ownership works the same way in the Amazon as anywhere else is flawed. There is a lot of illegal seizure/burning/occupying of Amazon forest. Land that is suitable for ranching is not usually easily converted to soybeans, as far as I know, but I could be wrong. The story also ignores numerous instances of farmland being rewilded to serve a specific ecological purpose, like wetland restoration or flood reduction. I would have appreciated some references or links. I followed you as I'm still interested in what you have to say.
The bulk of the Cerrado is being converted to soybeans --
And the illegality of deforestation reinforces my point -- that people see an opportunity to exploit natural capital for financial capital, and it's a big enough draw that they're willing to break the law to do so.
As for farmland conversion -- yes it happens, usually because a farm has failed. I touched on that in a couple previous articles.
I think I get your wider - much more important - point - that so long as we consume so much and fail to acknowledge the destructive effect of commercial farming in general then the spiral will continue. However, I think we should emphasis the massive energy savings of reducing meat consumption. Neither the planet nor our biology was meant to eat meat ten times per week. Conscious consumption necessitates reduction in meat consumption
Hi Dr Dan thanks for the comment—you’ve got the greater point, and the second half of your comment is the subject of many future posts. If you go to my original post on humans as a keystone species it’ll give you a taste of where this is going.
Well said. Consumerism, capitalism, greed. Call it what you will, animal agriculture as it is practiced today is just one cog in the machine keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Reducing consumption of animal products is but one piece of the puzzle. The thing is, it would yield multi-factor benefits - less murder and torture of sentient, feeling beings, less horrific pollution, and better human health.
Deforestation is probably one of the lesser negative outcomes of animal agriculture. Still bad but as you rightly point out, re-wilding is wildly unrealistic. Would be wonderful but not really practical unless we’re planning on a pretty epic depopulation of humans.
The obvious missing information in the pro-vegan graphic: who feeds the microbes?
The cattle feed the microbes, and the dung beetles, and the worms.
If they are thinking the grain will grow without animals in the loop, either they are counting on synthetic fertilizers, or they simply don’t know what it takes to grow a crop.
You're right in that efficiency is not the ONLY solution. There can be a rebount effect. We had a sustainability class at uni talking about models of sustainability and how it used to be simply about efficiency but that's not enough to really be sustainable for future generations. Other factors like sufficiency and consistency matter too. Nonetheless efficiency is an important PART of a sustainable future and that definitely means people need to reduce meat consumption. The vegans still speak the facts if they talk about the land that's being used and specifically Amazon rain forest being cut down to feed cattle like that's just a reality.